The first rule of politics, learn how to count. What is a House of Commons majority?

Posted on November 13, 2021 by Andrew Defty

US President, Lyndon B. Johnson famously said the first rule of politics was to learn how to count. Politics is not all about voting, but in democracies it is the way in which governments attain power, and once they get it the means by which they drive through their legislative agenda. An ambitious programme for government is worth little if one doesn’t have the numbers to get elected and once elected to turn that programme into law.

In majoritarian systems like the UK, governments hope to do this by winning a majority of seats in Parliament, but what constitutes a parliamentary majority is not always clear and may change over time. Indeed, a government’s majority may be different with each votes that passes.

What is a majority in the House of Commons?

There are 650 seats in the Houses of Commons. In order to be sure of securing their legislative agenda a government needs to hold more than half of those seats, that is 326 seats.

While a plurality (more than half) of the seats in parliament is the magic number on election night, the size of a government’s majority relates to how many more seats it has than all of the other parties in parliament combined. The government’s majority is simply how many more seats a governing party has than the rest of the parties. If the government held only 326 seats, the other parties in parliament would hold the remaining 324 seats giving the government a majority of 2. This is not a very secure majority and the government would need to ensure that most of its MPs were available to vote at almost every vote, but it is a majority

The current government was elected in 2019 with 365 seats, the total number of seats won by the remaining parties was 285, which meant that the government had a majority of 80.

There are, however, a number of MPs who don’t vote in parliament which in effect reduces the size of the House and lowers number of seats needed to have a plurality. The Speaker of the House of Commons by convention does not vote, the Speaker also has three deputies who also don’t vote. These four MPs are usually drawn equally from the two main parties in parliament. The current Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle was elected as a Labour MP. The three deputy speakers are Dame Rosie Winterton who is also a Labour MP, and two Conservative MPs, Dame Eleanor Laing and Nigel Evans. These four MPs don’t vote, which brings the total number of voting MPs down to 646, and the number of seats needed for a majority down from 326 to 324.

In addition to the Speaker and his deputies, seven MPs were elected for the Irish republican party Sinn Fein. These MPs refuse to take the parliamentary oath of allegiance to the Queen and don’t take their seat at Westminster. This reduces the total number of voting MPs in the House of Commons by 11, bringing the size of the House down to 639 seats, and the number of votes needed for a majority down to 320.

The exclusion of MPs who don’t vote also changes the size of the government’s majority. In 2019, of the 639 seats held by voting MPs, 363 were held by Conservative MPs, while the remaining 276 were held by MPs from other parties, leaving the government in effect with a significantly larger majority of 87. This is what is known as the government’s working majority.

In practice then following the 2019 general election in order to win a vote in the House of Commons the government needed to secure at least 320 votes, out of the 363 Conservative MPs. This meant that more than 43 Conservative MPs would need to vote against the government (against the whip) in order for the government to lose a vote in the House of Commons.

How a government’s majority changes

A government’s majority can and often does change in the period between general elections. MPs choose to leave parliament to pursue other careers or through ill health and some may sadly die in office. These departures will result in a by-election which, depending on who wins, may alter the number of seats held by the government or opposition parties. Others may have the whip removed, essentially ejecting them from the parliamentary party. This may be for a variety of reasons: because they have broken parliamentary rules; or broken the law; or because they have refused to vote with the party in parliament. Although these MPs may still sit in parliament, and may continue to vote with their former party, they will not be counted amongst their former party’s MPs. If their behaviour has been sufficiently serious it may trigger a recall procedure which may force them to seek re-election.

All of the above events may result in by-elections which, depending on the result, may change a government’s majority, but it is worth remembering that because there is usually a period of time between an MP leaving parliament and a by-election being held to replace them all by-elections lead to a change in the parliamentary numbers, even if only for a short period of time.

There have been four by-elections since the current government was elected in December 2019. Two of these were held by the same party, in Airdrie and Shotts (SNP) and Batley and Spen (Labour). The Conservatives won the first by-election of the parliament in Hartlepool, briefly increasing their majority, but then lost the seat of Chesham and Amersham to the Liberal Democrats.

There are currently three vacant seats in Parliament,  two caused by the death of sitting MPs, James Brokenshire who died of cancer in October and David Amess, who was murdered later the same month. Another by-election has been triggered by the resignation of the MP, Owen Paterson following his suspension from the House for breaching lobbying rules. The departure of these MPs means that the total number of voting MPs in the House of Commons is currently 636, which means 319 votes are needed to win.

Although this is only one less then following the 2019 election, all three of the vacant seats were previously held by Conservative MPs so their departures have had an impact on the government’s majority. In addition, two Conservative MPs have had the whip withdrawn since the 2019 election. Rob Roberts, the Conservative MP for Delyn was suspended from the Conservative Party in 2020 after being suspended from parliament for sexual misconduct. Imran Ahmad Khan, the Conservative MP for Wakefield was also suspended from the party pending trial for an alleged sexual offence.

The cumulative effect of the three pending by-elections and the two suspensions is that the number of seats held by Conservative MPs is currently 360, down from 365 following the 2019 election, and 358 voting members if one discounts the two deputy speakers. Although several opposition MPs have also been suspended by their parties (2 Labour, 1 each from Plaid Cymru and the SNP) as none have yet left parliament this doesn’t have an impact on the government’s majority which only relates to how many more MPs the government has than the remaining parties combined.

As things stand then, with 358 voting Conservative MPs, and 276 other voting MPs, the government has a working majority of 82, down from 87 following the general election.

Of course, with two by-elections scheduled for December and the third presumably shortly after, and the possibility, likelihood perhaps, of more suspensions or MPs stepping down as a result of the renewed focus on MPs second jobs and expenses, the numbers may change again very soon.

Why don’t all MPs vote in every vote?

Finally, why don’t all MPs vote in every vote in parliament and, if the government has a working majority of 82, why does it not win every vote in parliament by 82 votes?

It is relatively rare for all MPs who can vote to vote at the same time in the House of Commons and while it is rare for the government to lose a vote, the size of its majority will vary from vote to vote. In one recent, albeit slightly unusual, day in the House of Commons on different votes the government’s majority ranged from 18 to 275.

On any given day, a number of MPs will be away from the chamber on other business. Government ministers in particular may have a range of other responsibilities which mean that they can’t be in the House of Commons for every vote. For example, in the last week or so, a large number of ministers, as well as MPs from other parties, have been away from Westminster at the COP26 summit in Scotland. At the same time, some MPs may need to be away from the chamber on personal business, to attend family events such as weddings, funerals or school sports days or important events in their constituencies. In recent years MPs have also been given maternity and paternity leave and MPs, like the rest of us, are also occasionally unwell.

In order to allow MPs to be away from the chamber without affecting the outcome of a vote a system of pairing is in place in which an MP wishing to be absent is paired with an MP from an opposition party who will agree not to vote, in order balance the numbers. Pairing means that on any day the number of votes needed for a majority in the House of Commons will often be less than 326.

Pairing is a well-established convention which is administered by the party whips, but it is not without its controversies. In 2018, during the Brexit votes the Conservative Chief Whip told Conservative MPs to break their pairing arrangements including one with the Liberal Democrat MP, Jo Swinson, who had recently given birth.

Aside from mutual arrangements between MPs who wish to be away from the chamber for various reasons, whether MPs vote will depend on the importance of the vote and whether it is likely to be closely contested. There is a broad acceptance on the part of all parties that if a government has a large majority it can be assured of winning most votes and there is little point in testing this by forcing all of their MPs to vote on every issue. This is partly managed by the whips who will produce a weekly list of forthcoming parliamentary votes and underline them with one, two or three lines depending on how important the vote is. MPs can be assured that on a one-line whip a large number of MPs from both sides of the House will choose to absent themselves and they can safely avoid the vote with little consequence. Moreover, government and opposition parties may not consider the same votes to be important, consequently the difference between the number of government and opposition MPs voting may vary greatly and can exceed the government’s current working majority.

While there is likely to be considerable flexibility on some votes, choosing not to vote on a three-line whip is, however, likely to have serious consequences for the MP concerned. Nevertheless, MPs can and do express their objection to their own party’s position either by voting against the whip or by choosing not to vote at all.

The only votes that are counted at Westminster are those that are made either for or against by walking through the division lobbies. There is no formal mechanism for recording an abstention. At the same time MPs can simply choose not to vote in order to express their unhappiness with what they are being asked to vote on, by staying in the chamber or staying away. Some may wish to go further and vote against their party and vote with the opposition. Although such rebellions, or cross-party voting, are relatively rare in the House of Commons they have become more common in recent years.

One prominent recent example, of both of these things, and of the importance of the parliamentary arithmetic, was the vote for the amendment to overturn the suspension of the Conservative MP, Owen Paterson, and change the standards procedure for the House of Commons. Although the government, in a break with precedent, whipped the vote, only 247 of a possible 358 Conservative MPs voted with the government. Of the 111 Conservative MPs who didn’t support the vote, 13 voted against, which means that 98 did not vote. Some of those 98 MPs would have been paired with opposition MPs who also weren’t in the chamber. However, as only 56 opposition MPs did not vote, at least 41 of the Conservative MPs who didn’t vote with the government could not have been paired with an opposition MP and consequently didn’t vote for some other reason entirely.

That in short is how a government with a working majority of 80, can win a parliamentary vote by only 18.

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It’s not about the clock, but it is time for publishers to rethink the presentation of British politics

Posted on October 9, 2021 by Andrew Defty

While updating my textbook review this year and prompted in part by the publication of several new texts, I was struck by the remarkable lack of variety in the selection of cover images for UK politics textbooks. More specifically I was struck by the ubiquity of the Palace of Westminster or more often one part of the Palace, the clock tower, known to most as the home of Big Ben.

It is worth noting that none of the books above are specifically about Parliament or indeed about clocks. Yet the Westminster Parliament has become a symbol for British politics and the Elizabeth Tower has become a symbol for the Houses of Parliament. It is also worth noting that the authors of the above books will have had little, if any, say regarding the cover artwork and that all of these books offer a much broader perspective on British government and politics than is suggested by the covers.

There is some variety. The covers of two of the above books, the 2nd edition of Michael Moran’s Politics and Governance in the UK and Cocker and Jones’ Contemporary British Politics and Government, also include a nod to the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The latest edition of Griffiths and Leach’s British Politics has Parliament obscured by demonstrators holding flares, which does at least suggest that politics might involve people and take place beyond Westminster.

To be fair to the publishers, the mock-Gothic Palace of Westminster is undoubtedly a photogenic building and easily recognisable. It is also worth considering what the alternatives are? The second most popular cover image on British politics textbooks is the Union flag, something which several of the books above have cleverly managed to combine with the Houses of Parliament. Given that these books are about government and not just Parliament, it is perhaps surprising that the Prime Minister’s residence, 10 Downing Street, has not featured on more covers. It is however, a fairly nondescript terraced house, which unlike Parliament has not attracted the attention of any artists of note and for security reasons is quite difficult to photograph. Given the unpredictable nature of political careers it is also perhaps unsurprising that few publishers have chosen to grace their covers with shots of actual politicians.

Nevertheless, it is perhaps time to think about a different way of presenting British politics to those who are studying it. Time to replace the Palace of Westminster with an image that suggests that politics is fundamentally about people rather than about buildings or even institutions. Also perhaps, an image that reflects the fact that British politics extends some way beyond Westminster, although replacing shots of the Palace of Westminster with the Scottish Parliament or the Sennedd is probably not the answer. Something which reflects the diversity of modern Britain and the dynamism of  current debates in British politics would surely be better than another shot of a nineteenth century palace dressed up to look like something much older. It is not my intention here to suggest an alternative cover image but I will make one suggestion – why not let the people decide? Before publishing the next edition of one of these textbooks perhaps the publishers might run a competition for a cover image and let their readers decide – that’s politics. Only one restriction, no clocks!

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Can the Conservatives win in Hartlepool?

Posted on March 19, 2021 by Andrew Defty

Growing up in Hartlepool in the 1970s and 80s it was often said that if you pinned a red rosette on a donkey, although not perhaps a monkey, it would be elected to Parliament. Aside from a brief period from 1959 to 1964 when the seat was held by the Conservatives, Hartlepool has been a Labour seat since 1945.

Labour won the seat once again in 2019 when a host of so-called ‘red wall’ seats fell across the North of England, including bastions of Labour support in the North-East such as Bishop Auckland, Blyth Valley and neighbouring Sedgefield. However, the resignation of the sitting Labour MP, Mike Hill, has triggered a by-election which will offer the Conservatives another opportunity to chip away at the red wall.

A by-election in Hartlepool would not normally attract much attention but political commentators, starved of by-elections for the longest period since the second world war and still digesting the remarkable gains made by the Conservatives in 2019, sense an upset may be on the cards. It is unlikely that this excitement is shared by Hartlepool voters who are being asked to elect their MP for the fourth time in six years, but are they really prepared to deliver the political bombshell that some are anticipating?

Those who think the seat may fall to the Conservatives point in particular to the results of the 2019 election (fig. 1). Labour’s share of the vote in Hartlepool fell from 53% in 2017 to 38% in 2019 and their majority was halved, bringing the Conservatives within 3,600 votes of winning the seat. Perhaps more significantly the Brexit Party, who fielded their leader Richard Tice, won more than ten thousand votes. The combined votes of the Conservatives and the Brexit Party easily exceeded those won by Labour. The not unreasonable assumption is that if just a fraction of Brexit Party voters switch to the Conservatives, then Labour will be in trouble.

Labour’s electoral dominance

It is, however, far from clear that the Conservatives can win in Hartlepool. Although Labour’s share of the vote in Hartlepool has fluctuated, in some cases quite dramatically and the gap between Labour and the Conservatives has narrowed across recent elections, (fig.2), the Conservatives would need to perform spectacularly well to overturn Labour’s hold in Hartlepool. Any incumbent going into a by-election with a 9-point lead over a governing party could normally expect to be reasonably confident of victory. Moreover, the Conservatives have rarely secured more than 30% of the vote in Hartlepool, whereas Labour routinely exceed 40%, and secured over 50% of the vote as recently as 2017. Despite a relatively poor performance in 2019 Labour still managed to rack up more than 15,000 votes, more votes than the Conservatives have attracted at any Hartlepool election since 1992. There are a lot of Labour voters in Hartlepool, if they can be persuaded to turn out and vote. The Conservatives, on the other hand, would need to win the support of new voters.

There are also grounds for thinking that Labour may be in a stronger position both locally and nationally than they were in 2019, and it is notable that while Labour’s majority was cut in 2019, they did manage to hold on when similar seats fell to the Conservatives. It is not yet clear why Mike Hill has resigned as the town’s MP, but he held on in 2019 despite the fact that he had only recently been reinstated by the Labour Party following allegations of sexual harassment. Labour will be hoping that a new candidate with a less tarnished reputation will be able to bring back Labour voters.

Much has also been made of Conservative victories elsewhere on Teesside in 2019 most notably in Stockton South and Darlington and the Conservative victory in the Tees Valley mayoral election in 2017. However, Hartlepool has perhaps more in common with neighbouring Middlesbrough which has returned a Labour MP at every election since it was established in 1974, than the more affluent communities of Darlington and Stockton South, both of which have elected Conservative MPs in the more recent past. It is also worth bearing in mind that the majority of voters in Hartlepool (and Middlesbrough), did not vote for the much vaunted Conservative victor in the Tees Valley mayoral election in 2017.

Moreover, insofar as the national picture will impact on this by election, although support for Labour has dipped in recent opinion polls, the gap between Labour and the Conservatives is narrower now than it was in 2019. Similarly, Keir Starmer’s approval ratings, although lower than the Prime Minister’s, are considerably higher than those of Jeremy Corbyn in 2019, particularly in the north of England.

The Brexit factor

It is also not yet clear what role Brexit might play in this by-election. Euroscepticism has been a strong political force in Hartlepool for more than ten years. The town is to some extent typical of the so-called ‘left-behind’ constituencies which voted strongly for leave in the 2016 referendum. UKIP won their first seat on the local council in 2006. The party came second in the 2015 general election in Hartlepool and second in all but one of the town’s wards in that year’s local elections. Support for leave was particularly strong in the less affluent and Labour voting parts of the town, rather than the Conservative voting wards on the more rural fringes.

It has not yet been announced whether Reform UK, the latest iteration of the Brexit Party, will be fielding a candidate in Hartlepool but their leader Richard Tice tweeted this week that the Conservatives cannot win in Hartlepool, but if they stood aside he could beat Labour. This is a bold claim from someone who came third in 2019, but Tice does have a point. Conservative hopes are built on the assumption that those who voted for the Brexit Party last time will now gravitate towards the Conservatives. However, the Brexit Party attracted more votes from disaffected Labour supporters than from the Conservatives. For Labour voters disillusioned with Westminster politics the step from Labour to the Brexit Party may be a small one compared to switching to the Conservatives. It is not unreasonable to assume that some of these may return to Labour while a sizeable proportion may stay at home.

Moreover, Brexit may not be the most significant issue in this by-election. Britain has now left the EU and a deal has been struck. Labour in particular will want to focus on other issues. The hospital in Hartlepool will be 50 years old next year. An oft-promised replacement just outside the town has never materialised. Moreover, health services in Hartlepool have been significantly eroded in recent years. There is no A&E and only limited maternity provision in Hartlepool, a town of over 90,000 people. Emergency cases and pregnant women can expect to be ferried ten miles down the road to Teesside along a congested stretch of the A19. In this context Labour’s selection of Paul Williams, a doctor who has spent lockdown working in Hartlepool hospital may well pay dividends and may even be enough to eclipse the fact that he lives in Stockton.

Electoral Volatility

Reform UK may yet have an impact on this by-election, but there may also be other beneficiaries of voters’ disillusionment with the established parties. Labour’s hold on Hartlepool’s seat at Westminster belies considerable electoral volatility in the town, which perhaps make it difficult to predict the outcome of the forthcoming by-election. The contest for Hartlepool’s seat in Parliament has not for some time been a straight fight between Labour and the Conservatives. The Liberal Democrats came second in the last by-election in the town, following Peter Mandelson’s departure in 2004, and again in the general election the following year. The party which has come closest to winning the seat from Labour is UKIP who cut Labour’s majority to just over 3000 votes in 2015. In 2019 the Brexit Party were closer to pushing the Conservatives into third place than the Conservatives were to winning the seat.

The extent of electoral volatility and the roots of Labour’s problems in Hartlepool can be more clearly illustrated by looking at second-order elections in the town. The forthcoming by-election is likely to be run in May alongside this year’s local elections when, following boundary changes, all seats on Hartlepool Borough Council will also be up for election.

The last time all seats on the council were contested at the same time was in 2012 when Labour won 23 out of 33 seats. Since then Labour’s control of the council has been eroded by the election of a succession councillors representing small special interest parties and independent candidates. Labour’s difficulties were compounded in 2019 when several Labour councillors left to join the Socialist Labour Party and Labour lost control of the council.  Labour currently holds six out of 33 seats on Hartlepool Borough Council, the Conservatives hold four. There are nine parties represented on the council, including Hartlepool Independent Union (5 seats), Hartlepool People (2 seats) and Putting Seaton First (2 seats) as well as several independent councillors.

It is also worth noting that when the people of Hartlepool were given the opportunity to vote for a directly elected mayor in 2002, they elected the H’Angus the Monkey, the mascot of the local football team. The man in the monkey suit, Stuart Drummond, was re-elected under his own name, for two further terms before the people of Hartlepool voted in a referendum in 2012 to abolish the role of the mayor.

This fracturing of party politics in Hartlepool may have created space for a strong independent local candidate to have a significant impact in this by-election. Monkey suits are optional.

Prior to the 1974 general election the constituency of Hartlepool was known as The Hartlepools, reflecting the town of Hartlepool and the new town of West Hartlepool, which was established in 1847. The two were combined into a single borough in 1967. One still occasionally hears reference to the Hartlepools and the headland area of the town is widely known as Old Hartlepool.

There will be 36 seats on Hartlepool Borough Council contested at this year’s local elections.

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Are attitudes towards the Empire changing?

Posted on March 8, 2021 by Andrew Defty

Recent years have seen a growing interest and some considerable debate about the legacy of the British Empire. Critics of the Empire have long claimed that the British often have a rose-tinted view of Empire and that more should be done to educate the public about the damaging consequences of colonialism. The Labour Party manifesto for the 2019 general election include a commitment to:

Conduct an audit of the impact of Britain’s colonial legacy to understand our contribution to the dynamics of violence and insecurity across regions previously under British colonial rule.

A separate race and faith manifesto pledged to ensure that ‘the historical injustices
of colonialism’ were properly integrated into the National Curriculum.

The Black Lives Matter protests which sprang up across the UK in the summer of 2020  also raised questions about the commemoration of Britain’s colonial past and led in part to the toppling of the statue of the Bristol slave trader, Edward Colston. While some expressed disquiet at the manner of the statue’s removal,  several other councils responded by removing statues, and the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, announced the establishment of a Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm, to review the context of the capital’s street names, names of public buildings and memorial plaques.

Recent years have also seen the publication of a number of prominent studies of Britain and Empire by authors, including David Olusoga, Priyamavada Gopal and Sathnam Sanghera, whose work is shaped in part by their own experience of race in modern Britain. To some extent the work by these authors, and others, has been instrumental in reclaiming the history of empire from white British authors who had previously dominated the field.

There has been a, perhaps predictable, response to this from some who claim that seeking to provide a more complete picture of the impact of empire both on Britain and its former colonies is somehow erasing Britain’s past. The National Trust has been heavily criticised for supporting research on the links between colonialism and Britain’s stately homes, many of which profited from the slave trade. Earlier this year the Culture Secretary, Oliver Dowden, reportedly told Britain’s leading heritage bodies that it was their duty to defend Britain’s history from those who would ‘do Britain down.’

In this context it is often noted that for many Britons the Empire is a source of national pride. There is certainly evidence to support this. In a YouGov poll in 2014, 59% of respondents said that the British empire was something to be proud of, while only 19% thought it was a source of shame. In 2020 research by YouGov on public attitudes to empire in eight former colonial powers indicated that the British public were second only to the Dutch in viewing their empire as a source of national pride.

There is, however, some evidence that the British public’s support for empire has changed in  recent years. There have been several polls since 2014 which indicate a significant drop in the proportion expressing pride in the British Empire (figure 1). When YouGov asked about this again in 2016, only 44% said they felt that Britain’s history of colonialism was something to be proud of, and this had fallen to 32% when YouGov asked again in mid-2019. This was also reflected in an Ipsos Mori poll from August 2020, in which 34% said they felt the British Empire was something to be proud of.

The decline in support for the Empire, has not, however, resulted in an increase in those who feel ashamed of Britain’s imperial past. Across the four polls mentioned above, no more than 21% said that they felt that the Empire was something to be ashamed of, and in the most recent poll only 16% thought it was a source of shame. It is notable that in the most recent polls pride in the Empire has been replaced by ambivalence or perhaps even indifference, with the largest proportion of respondents (37% according to YouGov and 40% for Ipsos Mori), supporting the view that the Empire is neither something to be proud or ashamed of.

It is tempting to suggest that the decline in support for empire in recent years is a response to events such as the Black Lives Matter protests and the broader public debate about the commemoration of Britain’s imperial past. The context for the four polls certainly may have had some impact on the results.  The 2014 poll which suggested high levels of support for the Empire took place at the time of the Commonwealth Games, which may have elicited a more positive view of Britain’s impact on the world. In contrast the subsequent polls all took place in the context of heightened public debate about the negative consequences of empire. The 2016 poll was taken at the time of, and included questions about, protests over the statue of Cecil Rhodes at Oriel College, Oxford. Similarly, the 2020 Ipsos Mori poll took place shortly after that summer’s Black Lives Matter protest, and included questions about support for the aims of the movement. While the 2019 YouGov poll took place in the context of Britain’s protracted withdrawal from the European Union, which several commentators have linked to imperial nostalgia.

These polls and others also reveal some other reservations about Britain’s imperial past. In the 2016 YouGov poll, while only 21% felt the empire was something to regret, a larger proportion (29%) thought that Britain ‘tends to view its history of colonisation too positively’, although 28% thought it was viewed too negatively. Another YouGov poll in November 2019 revealed strong support for the Labour leader’s call for more education about the negative consequences of empire, with 69% supporting the view that historical injustice, colonialism and the British Empire should be included in the national curriculum. Ipsos Mori’s 2020 poll revealed that a majority of the public (51%) supported the aims of the Black Lives Matter movement, while only 20% were opposed, with 24% expressing no opinion.

The British empire was vast and lasted for a very long time. It was undoubtedly responsible for some of the worst atrocities committed by man, including slavery and genocide. It also included significant examples of entrepreneurialism, altruism and humanitarianism. The history of empire is complex, as is its legacy. Questions about whether the whole imperial experience can be reduced to a sense of pride or shame are perhaps, ultimately unhelpful. But if, as some of the polls presented here suggest, attitudes are subject to change, then there is scope for debate about that legacy, and if moreover there is an appetite for more education about Britain’s imperial past, then that at least is something to be welcomed.

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Parliamentary Private Secretaries and the payroll vote under Boris Johnson

Posted on October 2, 2020 by Andrew Defty

The Government has published the latest list of Parliamentary Private Secretaries (PPS). I have written a number of previous posts about the role and particularly the rise in the number of Parliamentary Private Secretaries in recent years. I won’t repeat myself here other than to note that these unpaid positions are generally seen as the first rung on the ministerial ladder and, like ministers, MPs who are parliamentary private secretaries are expected to remain loyal and vote with the government. As such the offer of a position as a PPS, like ministerial office, is often seen as a carrot to guarantee support in the chamber of the House of Commons.  Despite the fact that PPSs do not receive a ministerial salary the combination of paid and unpaid ministerial positions is sometimes referred to as the payroll vote.

The size of the payroll vote has increased considerably in recent years leading to criticism that governments have used this form of patronage to pack the chamber with guaranteed votes. Although the number of paid ministerial positions is limited by law, there is no cap on the number of parliamentary private secretaries.

The latest data release indicates that there are 41 parliamentary private secretaries. This looks like a significant increase in the number of these posts under Boris Johnson. There were only 34 PPSs on the final list released under Theresa May in June 2019. However, this was perhaps more a reflection of the difficulties May faced in filling government posts as her government limped towards its demise. Previous lists released under Theresa May in 2017 and 2018 indicated there were 45 and 46 parliamentary private secretaries.

The total number of MPs currently holding government posts is on a par with recent governments. There are currently 80 MPs holding ministerial posts in the House of Commons and 13 serving as Whips. When combined with 41 parliamentary private secretaries this makes a payroll vote of 134 MPs. This is less than the 140 MPs holding government posts under Theresa May in 2018, and significantly lower than the high point of 148 under the coalition government in 2014.

Moreover, while the size of the payroll vote has changed little under the current government, the size of the government’s majority means that the proportion of Conservative MPs holding government positions is considerably lower than under David Cameron or Theresa May. Only 31% of those sitting on the government benches currently hold a government post, compared to 45% even in the final months of the Theresa May government.

Many would argue for the need to address the rise in the payroll vote, including perhaps a further limit on the number of ministerial posts and a cap on the number of parliamentary private secretaries. However, as the current government may discover with significant disgruntlement on the backbenches, political patronage may only stretch so far.

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